West Hartford Considering Ordinance To Allow Pet Chickens

WEST HARTFORD — — For West Hartford residents, the ordinance must come first. Then they can have the chicken, and the egg.

After a resident in September asked the town council to change its rules regarding pet chickens, the town started looking at whether to allow fowl — specifically, egg-laying hens — in residential backyards. Right now, town regulations only allow fowl in places zoned for farming.

Pet chickens have risen in popularity in recent years, as the locavore movement has gained traction and an increasing number of people are taking a great interest in where their food comes from. Several towns and cities across Connecticut, and many more throughout the country, allow residents to keep feathered friends.

"At least five years ago it started to pick up," said Michael Darre, poultry extension specialist and professor at the University of Connecticut. "Within the last three years it's really gone."

As the only poultry extension specialist in New England, Darre said that 10 or 15 of the 25 to 30 workshops he's conducted in the region each year for the past three years have been in Connecticut. Between 25 and 40 people typically attend each seminar, he said.

West Hartford is one of many localities dealing with the issue.

"You're gonna see more of it — it's all over the country," Darre said. "Every major city and every major suburb and every small town that doesn't have regulations [allowing hens], a lot of them are looking at it."

Darre said he provided information this summer to officials in Boston, where residents are fighting for a change in regulations.

West Hartford resident Heidi Green, who spoke to the town council "in defense of hens" on Sept. 11, said she's personally dedicated to the locavore movement and has been looking into having her own chickens for the past three years.

Green said she was surprised to learn that West Hartford, where many restaurants tout local ingredients and sustainability, banned chickens outside of farms. She said she knows some people who keep hens illegally, but she didn't want to go that route.

After she found out that a group of Hamden hen activists helped change regulations there in 2010, she said she thought it might be time to mobilize West Hartford's "chicken people." She asked the town council to allow residents to keep up to six hens.

"Chickens are wonderful pets," she told the council. "But they aren't just pets; they're pets with benefits."

One hen provides 300 free-range eggs each year, she said, and the eggs are higher in Omega-3 fatty acids than their store-bought counterparts. The hens help control insects and their manure is good for soil, she said.

The council's community planning committee began discussing the issue at its October meeting and will look at more data this month, Town Manager Ronald Van Winkle said.

"It's not an awful thing. Our biggest headache is going to be, your neighbor has chickens and you don't like it," Van Winkle said. "A small number shouldn't be a problem."

Darre said that it's up to local government to decide whether to allow backyard chickens, and he's an educator, not an advocate. But a small flocks typically aren't as problematic as people may think, he said.

Hens don't usually bring disease or bugs, and "cats and dogs smell more than chickens" do, he said.

"If managed properly, you don't get much of it at all," Darre said.

If the litter — typically pine shavings — is kept dry, there won't be an odor, he said. When it rains, manure is put back into the soil as a natural fertilizer.

McCahill said he gets a few calls a year complaining about the noise from the roosters, but people generally don't complain about hens.

West Hartford is only considering allowing hens, which don't need a rooster to lay eggs, Van Winkle said.

In Bristol, residents can keep up to 12 small fowl — including ducks, geese, chickens and pigeons — as long as they aren't being used for commercial purposes.

Bristol zoning official Anthony Decrisantis said the law is becoming more of an issue now that houses are built closer together.

Decrisantis said people sometimes complain that the animals aren't kept contained, and he's informally suggested that the zoning commission change the regulation to include a provision about lot size.

He said the department encourages people to use the same common sense when keeping chickens as they would with a dog.

"You don't live on a farm, you live in a city environment," he said.

West Hartford is discussing lot size requirements and rules like where on a property a coop could be built, as well as exploring the health and enforcement concerns that would come along with allowing hens.

"It's not like it's the end of the world [if] we have chickens," Van Winkle said. "We're trying to figure out how to do it appropriately."